Madame Misonne devant sa fenêtre – photographs by Léonard Misonne, circa 1910

 

Léonard Misonne (1 July 1870, Gilly, Charleroi, Belgium – 14 September 1943, Gilly, Charleroi, Belgium), Belgian photographer. The seventh son of a wealthy lawyer and industrialist, he studied mining engineering at the Université catholique de Louvain, but never worked as an engineer. While still a student, he became interested in music, painting and, beginning in 1890, photography; from 1896 he concentrated exclusively on photography. He traveled to Switzerland, Germany, and France, but most of his work was created in Belgium and the Netherlands, predominantly landscapes. His pictorialism was atmospheric and impressionistic – he was dubbed the “Corot of photography” – and he was known for his lighting effects: “Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and ordinary subjects… The subject is nothing, light is everything.”

The third picture shows his wife, Valentine – wearing the same gown as the previous two – with one of their eight children.

In 1906 he married Valentine Labin, with whom he had eight children. He also took his last major tour to Switzerland and Italy. But he suffered from a severe form of asthma and became house bound for much of his life. He became seriously ill in 1940 and died three years later in the place of his birth at the age of seventy-three.

Gods and Foolish Grandeur